Tuesday, July 14, 2015

In today’s gospel, Jesus sends the Twelve out on mission.
It is the same mission that the Father gave to his Son – the mission to preach repentance and healing.
It is the same mission that we have, to continue the work of the disciples.
Jesus makes it clear however, that this work will only be successful if concerns about material and physical things are given less importance than the preaching of the kingdom of God.
We cannot hope to be real heralds of the Good News unless we are authentic – unless we are truly sincere about our faith and show this in our lives.
Just as Jesus told his Twelve to take a risk and to travel light, so he tells us in our day to also take a risk in preaching repentance and healing.
The “risk” is that we are to begin with ourselves and to have the courage to change our sinful hearts.
Yes, we all have sinful hearts.
It is important for us to live for Jesus alone and this means that we should repent of a materialistic way of life.

The readings from today remind me of a popular novel that was eventually made into a movie.
The name of it is [Quo Vadis - which means in Latin “Where are you going?”]
This is a story of the early church and especially of St. Peter’s struggle to find the courage to lead the first believers in Rome.
One of my favorite passages is about a young Roman man who falls in love with a Christian girl.
Since he is not a disciple of Jesus, she will have nothing to do with him.
One night he follows her to a prayer meeting and there he hears St. Peter (no less) preach with great conviction.
After hearing this and seeing the sincerity of the Christians present, including the one he loves, he realizes that if he wants to follow this teaching, he would have to place on a burning pile all of his thoughts and habits, his whole character and indeed his whole nature up until that moment.
Only when this fire had burned his entire past into ashes would he be able to fill himself with a life altogether different – to become an entirely new person. This is repentance!
It is serious and not half‐hearted.
This is what Jesus preached.
This is what the Twelve preached.
This is what we are called to preach.
But we cannot do it unless our own repentance is authentic and complete.
The temptation is to point to the other guy and say, you need to repent.
But we cannot convince the other guy to repent until we repent, and until our repentance brings healing.
Then our example of wholeheartedly living out the Gospel will attract others to the good news of the Gospel, the Gospel of Life, the Gospel of Justice, and the Gospel of Peace.

As many or you know my wife Liz and I are about to begin our missionary journey in a little less than 2 weeks.
We will initially receive training with the Salesian in New York, followed by attending an Immersion Spanish School in Guatemala, and then final placement in Bolivia.
Yet, this journey actually began many months ago when we started to purge the possessions from our lives.
Week by week the possessions from many years began to disappear as we had yard sales, gave items to friends and family, and gave donations.
It didn’t take long and the whole house and garage were empty.
Yet, the climatic event was when our house sold and we were without a home, only retaining a few sentimental possessions, items that could fit into our vehicle.
I didn’t know what it would feel like being void of everything that I had accumulated until that moment when we drove away from our former home.
I pondered that feeling for many hours and maybe I am still processing some of those feeling yet today…. But to sum it up, what I carry is a feeling of total freedom.
The burden of possessions is gone; the responsibility of owning and paying for things has been lifted.
I feel unattached and able to give in a way I have never experienced before.
When Jesus instructed the disciples to take nothing for their journey he knew that worldly things would get in the way of spreading the message of God.
Our lives have to be authentic and what we teach and preach are to be lived out by us.
It is necessary for us to “travel light” as we preach the Good News.
Only then will our Catholic lives be attractive to others.
Only then will we begin to fill the hunger of those around us.
Only then will the healing begin.
In today’s gospel, Jesus left it up to the Twelve.
Today he leaves it up to us.
Let’s Become Authentic in our Faith!
Start today to purge from your lives all that which has become an obstacle in your life of faith!
Begin today to preach repentance by your actions and your life!
Be not afraid, Take a risk, and become… authentically and joyfully Catholic!

Sunday, July 05, 2015

A couple of years ago I was
talking to a man who was telling me about his life. He said that most
things in his life were great, except for one thing. He shared that had a
terrible temper, which was so frustrating. He said, ‘If only I didn’t
have this temper, everything would be perfect.’

I couldn’t help but think that
this weakness that was so frustrating to him, was probably also one of the
things that helped him to stay close to God. Because if he thought he was
perfect he would probably also think that he had no need for God. I heard
it once said that if we are not aware of our weaknesses we can become terribly
arrogant, and in the face of arrogance, God is hidden.

The readings today remind me
of a priest known simply as Brother Andrew, who co-founded the Brothers part of
the Missionaries of Charity with Mother Teresa. In one of his books about
his experiences, he writes: ‘Few people would believe the weakness on which the
Missionaries of Charity are built.’

It is a strange statement for
most people to hear when we think of people like Mother Teresa and the
extraordinary work that she and the many other sisters and brothers do.
Brother Andrew speaks a lot about his own weakness, although he doesn’t say
exactly what it was, except that he suffered from some kind of addiction.
This weakness, which frustrated him so much, was also one of the things that
made him holy. He doesn’t say that, but you can see it from his
writings. The reason why God did such great work through him, through
Mother Teresa and through so many others, was not because they were talented
enough, but because they were aware of how weak they were and so they relied
totally on God for everything.

The reason why God was able to
do such extraordinary things through the saints is not because they were
perfect, but because they were weak people who continually turned to him and so
God was able to use them in an extraordinary way. It is very easy to get
a false impression of what holiness is since books can often give us the
impression that saints were people who did no wrong. The truth is saints
were and are weak people, with just as many weaknesses as any of us, but they
continually turned to God for help and as a result God was able to work through
them in an amazing way. To understand this is key to growing in the
spiritual life. If the saints were perfect people who never did any
wrong, then very few of us could relate to them. But if they were weak
people just like any of us—which they were and are—then not only can we relate
to them, but it should help us to see that the same path is open to us, because
it doesn’t depend on us being good enough, rather it depends on us continually
turning to God. That is the key.

There is no one here who doesn’t
struggle with weaknesses of one kind or another. It could be some kind of
addiction, it could be a need to control, an emotional dependency,
whatever. We all have something and as you well know it can be extremely
frustrating.

However, I find it consoling that
two thousand years ago St. Paul writes about the exact same thing (See this
Sunday’s second reading 2 Cor 12:7-10). Paul was a very intelligent man,
well educated and obviously very talented. And even though he had visions
of Jesus which converted him and then he went and preached everywhere, he too
suffered from some kind of weakness, although he doesn’t say what it was. In
today’s second reading you can really sense his frustration as he says that
three times he asked God to take this thing away from him, and three times God
said ‘No, my strength is at its best in weakness.’ This weakness,
whatever it was, obviously helped him more than he realised. It kept him
humble and it meant that he continually needed to turn to the Lord and ask for
his help and that is why he and so many other men and women were such powerful
instruments in God’s hands, because they relied totally on God and not on
themselves as they were well aware of how weak they were.

I have no doubt that all of us
probably feel that we would be much better off if we could overcome our
weaknesses. But perhaps these readings will help us to see that the Lord
knows what He is doing when He allows us to struggle with them. Yes, they
are frustrating, but they can also be a gift in the sense that they make us
rely on the power of God more than on ourselves. It also reminds us that
it is not a question of being ‘good enough’ for God. We will never be
good enough, but that doesn’t matter. As long as we know that we are weak
then we will see that we have someone to turn to who really can and will help
us.

In closing, let’s take a
moment and prayerfully reflect on our own personal…. You know , that thing tha
we struggle with week after week.

Let’s just how powerless we are when we rely
only on ourselves….. We need God’s help.

Now take that weakness and
allow it to humble you….. allow it to make you a little less judgmental…… maybe
a little more forgiving, understanding, and compassionate.

Take that weakness and give it
to God…… and then, let’s humbly pray that we may become a reflection of God to
others in the world

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Jesus begins his
teaching: “The kingdom of God is…”. Now, what do you think Jesus means when he
says “kingdom of God”? What is he talking about? Well, back in the days
of Jesus, there was this long held belief that the history of the world would
contain five great kingdoms. At that time our great kingdoms had already come
and passed and now the ruler of the world was Rome. Rome had an overwhelming
military, and a unbelievable economic and political control over the world. So
everyone was a bit anxious. Is this it?, they feared. Is the kingdom of
Rome going to be the fifth and final climactic kingdom of the earth? Will Rome
have the last word? Is our world coming to the end? But in the midst of this
Kingdom of Rome Jesus came preaching about the Kingdom of God. It seems like he’s
trying to tell the people something.

Maybe the message that
whether the end is near or not, the final kingdom of the world will not be the
kingdom of Rome, that it will be the kingdom of God. That Rome will not
have the final say; but God will. That it is about the power and activity of
God in the world, not some power and control of an emperor. Jesus spoke to
them about the kingdomof God
to try and help the people see it and understand.

But, Jesus isn’t the
first person to try this, to try and give an image to what the kingdom of God
looks like. In the first reading we heard the prophet Ezekiel describe the
kingdom of God as being something like a big noble Cedar tree. He uses
the image of a large and strong tree, so big that every kind of bird could nest
in it. A description that makes sense, especially since most of us like to
think of God and the kingdom of God as large and powerful and protective over
the whole earth.

But that’s not how
Jesus describes it. Remember, Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God in a different way, in parables. And a
parable is a lot like a riddle, or a puzzle. The answer isn’t obvious at
first. Its meaning isn’t immediately clear. In fact, it is meant to initially confuse
and frustrate the person hearing it before it begins to shed any light on the
situation. It is supposed to make you stop and think. Parables allow us
an opportunity to change how we normally think about something. They are meant
to give us a different perspective and understanding of things and ideas that
we have built for ourselves.

So if everyone thinks
the kingdom of God is like a cedar tree, large and in charge, Jesus turns the
whole thing upside down when he begins to speak about his version of the
kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like a sleeping
gardener. The kingdom of God is like a gardener who tosses some seed on the
ground and goes back to bed, without the faintest idea of how it begins to
grow. It just does. And in the end, the farmer gets to reap the
benefits.

Hmmm…so what’s Jesus
trying to say here? Well, knowing that a parable is like a riddle, whose
meaning isn’t quite clear at first, he gives us and the people another chance
at it with a second parable. He then states that the kingdom of God is like a tiny
seed, a mustard seed in fact. It is the smallest of all the seeds on earth,
but when it grows it becomes the greatest of all…shrubs.

I wonder if the people
gathered around Jesus at the time he was teaching this message were a lot like
you and me. Maybe they came together hungry for a word of hope. Maybe
they had difficulty seeing God at work in the world and in their lives. Maybe
they feared another power had more control over the world than God. Maybe
all they could feel was the suffocating weight of an oppressive government. Maybe
all they could see was their chronic illness, or a broken relationship, or
hatred, or loneliness. Maybe they just wanted to know that God was a part
of their lives and that they were not alone.

So Jesus tells them a
parable – That the kingdom of God is like a gardener who tosses seed on the
ground. The seed begins to grow, even though the gardener can’t see it. He
reassures them that the kingdom of God, the presence of God, the activity of
God, is not something we have to wait for. It is happening right now, even
though we can’t always see it. In fact, not only is the kingdom of God growing,
you can’t stop it from growing. Because the kingdom of God, Jesus says, is
like a mustard seed. And a mustard seed when it grows into a bush, acts
just like…a weed. Those of you who are gardeners and farmers know how
weeds work. You can’t kill them. They’ll always find their way
back. And that is what the kingdom of God is like, Jesus says. You
can’t kill it. You can try, but it will always find its way back into your
life. And then it just grows and grows and grows.

The kingdom of God, the
activity of God, looks different than the world’s understanding of a
kingdom. The Kingdom of God is not the same as the kingdom of Rome was.
It doesn’t look like power and strength. And sometimes, we just can’t see
it. It’s like a seed, growing slowly underneath the soil, where the
gardener can’t see what’s happening beneath the surface. But other times,
when we do see it, it just seems so small and insignificant, like a mustard
seed, that we don’t recognize the kingdom of God that was hidden within it.

I don’t know about you,
but in the midst of our work-addicted, status-addicted, award-winning, and medal-wearing
society where it’s all about what you can achieve in your life, it is often
difficult to see the kingdom of God.

But Jesus wanted the
people surrounding him, and us to know, that the kingdom of God is here. Right
in front of us, right now, and that we don’t live under the kingdom of Rome, or
the kingdom of the United States, that we live in the Kingdomof God. And even though we might not always
see it, whether we see it or not, we cannot keep it from growing – because it’s
like the tiniest of mustard seeds. A weed that when planted and set
loose, there is just no stopping it.

This is what gives us hope
as Christians, that there is a kingdom of God and that we are a part of it.

In closing, Let us
pray…… that in faith, our spiritual eyes will open and we
will see and participate in the kingdom of God here on earth, and in time, in heaven.

Sunday, June 07, 2015

Two of my brothers who live in the San Jose area invited me to have a brothers motorcycle weekend with them. WOW! What a fun and enjoyable weekend it was..... and yes, they have combined, 9 motorcycles.... and REALLY nice one's. Thanks for spoiling me guys...

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“I give you my word, there is not one who has given up home, brothers or sisters, mother or father, children or property, for me and for the Gospel who will not receive in this present age a hundred times as many homes, brothers and sisters, mothers, children and property — and persecution besides — and in the age to come, everlasting life” (Mk 10:29-30).

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